Victory
by Lola Sveroski
Summary: It was an interesting idea. And then it grew. And became one of the biggest competition's in Camp history! Can Annabeth and Team Nike achieve victory in a baseball game against TEAM ARES?
1. Chapter 1

"STEEEEEEEEEEEEERIKE THREE, BATTER OUT!" the umpire called.

"Yeah! Go Yankees!" Percy cried, shouting at the TV.

Nico munched half-heartedly at some microwave popcorn. Grover chewed on a tin can. The Stoll brothers gave each other high-fives. All five of them were crowded around the teeny tiny television in the Poseidon Cabin, courtesy of some stealthy smuggling by Connor and Travis.

I rolled my eyes at their antics. Boys will be boys, I reminded myself. If only they weren't so… I don't know… loud. Obnoxious. Immature. All of the above.

"Hey," Nico said thoughtfully after watching a few more wind-ups, pitches, and STEEEEEEEEEEERIKES! "Wouldn't it be cool to have a Camp baseball game?"

"Hmm…" The idea got me thinking. Still pondering, I shut down my laptop and decided to go have a visit with the Activities Director.

"Chiron," I began. "I have an idea. A new camp activity."

He looked up from the pinochle table, where he and Dionysus were obviously in the middle of a game.

"Annabelle Chess, what do you need?" Dionysus snapped. "This better be good enough to interrupt our game."

"Baseball," I almost shouted. "We should play baseball."

..0..

The Athena Cabin was organizing the entire production. We picked teams, gathered equipment, the works. And then it was time for the first practice.

I had played softball a couple of times before, and it really wasn't all that different from baseball, but a lot of the campers had been too focused on staying not dead to learn a simple sport.

"Travis, get the bat back."

"Connor, the glove goes on your _hand."_

"Nico, you swing that bat like you're trying to decapitate a monster."

"Maybe I am," he snapped.

Never mess with the Ghost King armed with a baseball bat. Not a good choice, my friend.

"Annabeth!" I spun around and found Clarisse was jogging towards me.

"Hey," I smiled. Clarisse had seemed rather bitter all day. She wasn't the captain of her team, which made me suspect that her anger was directed towards the Apollo Camper in charge.

"Chloe Mynx just came down with the flu," she informed.

"Crap. We need to find a replacement captain." I replied, half joking.

"That would be why I am here."

_So _Clarisse. But what can I say? She'd make a good captain.

"Good luck. You're gonna need it squaring off against our team."

"Yeah right, Chase." She rolled her eyes and jogged back to her own team…

"Annabeth!" Percy called. "We need a team name."

I thought… Hmm… This would be interesting… "The… Mammals?" I asked. This would be tougher than it looked.

"TEAM HERMES!" Connor and Travis shouted simultaneously.

"Um… No," Nico rolled his eyes. "We have to think of something that isn't completely and totally lame."

"We tried," Travis sighed.

"Um… I got nothing." I, the Great and Terrible Annabeth Chase, was defeated. For now, anyways. "Let's get back to work."

Clarisse and her team – I had heard her yell "TEAM ARES, SWING HARDER!" and assumed that that was what they would be called – were going over some hard-core hitting drills. I winced as baseballs cracked against thick metal bats. Beating those buff Ares campers was gonna be tough.

A Hephaestus camper named Elza brought me a sketch. "It's a new bat. Celestial bronze. Acts as sports equipment _and _a weapon against deadly monsters!"

"Nice job!" I told her. "Run this to the forges and put the plan in action. It just might work…"

Even though we had five days until the big game, we were in a time crunch. And children of Athena need time to plan. Time crunches don't fit in well with our schedules.

" Everyone. Let's get to work. I want the Hephaestus, Hades, Poseidon, and Hermes cabins on hitting drills. The rest of you, partner up and play catch."

The Apollo, Zeus, Demeter, Dionysus, Morpheus, Persephone, Nemesis, Aphrodite, and Ares cabins were all a part of TEAM ARES.

Team Yet-To-Be-Named consisted of the Athena, Hephaestus, Hades, Poseidon, Hermes, Hecate, Janus, Eris, and Harmonia. The children of the other gods and goddesses had elected to just watch the game.

"Kata, get the arm back when you throw," I instructed a Hecate camper. "Nice, that's a lot better."

"Elsie, don't be _afraid _of the ball," Connor called, exasperated, to his half-sister.

Meanwhile, a daughter of Eris was getting into a heated debate with a child of Harmonia. Whose idea was it to put the children of two polar opposite goddesses on the same team? Oh… mine. I thought maybe they'd… play nice.

"Come on! Like, everyone _knows _that Aphrodite got stuck with Hephaestus because she was too ditzy to get a better guy." Luceffa Simon grinned maliciously.

"Got _stuck _with Hephaestus?" Audrey Kelley, a vicious looking Hephaestus camper, seemed ready to claw Luceffa's throat.

"But Aphrodite is our _grandmother. _You are _so _not allowed to insult gods, and definitely not grandmotherly gods!" Susie Minert looked ready to cry.

"Hey, hey, hey. Play nice guys. Susie and Audrey, you guys go work on hitting drills."

Score one for Team Annabeth. No within-team blow-ups yet. It's looking good.

Nico was helping a little girl – Jeyna – who happened to be his newly-discovered half-sister. She was only ten, but I could tell she had some _killer _batting skills. Must run in the family.

Percy was demonstrating how to throw a baseball to some younger Hecate and Janus kids. The Janus kids looked rather inquisitive, or maybe they were just messing with him.

"Do you like swinging the bat left or right?"

"Which kind of bat is your favorite?"

"Why don't you use a wooden bat? Aren't wooden bats better? Do you think wooden bats are better?"

Percy just smiled and shook his head. "Ask questions after I show you how to do this," he commanded. Ah, what leadership.

"Okay guys, time to pack up and go back to your cabins. Practice will resume tomorrow after dinner. Great job, everyone!"

As I started towards the Athena cabin, Clarisse gave me a devious look. "Good luck, Coach."


	2. Chapter 2

After two more practices, I finally had a name for us. We were Team Nike, Team Victory. It seemed fitting. A little confidence boost, because, after watching the Ares cabin hit baseballs out over the lake, we were gonna need it to win the game.

After our final practice before the big game, I decided that it was time for a pep talk.

"Alright guys, great job!" I told them. "You all did fabulous. Now, I want everyone to get a good night's sleep, don't try anything _funny _with the other team," with that I glared at Travis and Connor who sighed at my no-nonsense-ness, "and remember that we want to have fun tomorrow. Sure, winning would be nice, but you've all learned to play baseball. You learned new skills, and that's what counts. So, even if we don't beat Team Ares, Team Nike will be victorious anyways."

"I have something to add." I heard the voice of an Eris camper from behind me. _Oh no. _"Some of us would like to 'change sides' so to speak."

I should've expected as much from the little Eris brats. "Sorry, but at this point, it can't be done." I gave a sympathetic smile.

"Fine. Then we won't play."

"You guys committed to the team. You can't back down." I was firm. This little Eris brat wasn't about to boss me around.

"Kerry's right!" An older Eris camper stood up. "We don't want to be on this team."

"Why not?" I asked.

"We don't get any recognition, and everything is run by the children of the Olympians. We should be in charge for a change."

Kerry and the older camper stood with their arms crossed and identical grins on their faces. "Good luck winning without a 'secret' weapon." Kerry smirked.

"What do you mean?" Not to be offensive, but none of the Eris campers were our secret weapon. And then it hit me. They weren't afraid to _tell. _Everything. They could spill the beans to the Ares cabin and all of their team members. And then we would be done for. We would have nothing to scare them away with. TEAM ARES would know our every strategy, they'd be anticipating each and every one of our well-plotted moves. They couldn't. They wouldn't tell… Would they?

"We would do it, Chase. We could tell."

Okay. Not to worry. I had a plan. Sorta. Kind of. A slight, spur-of-the-moment, emergency plan. But it was a plan. And it may've been all we had. "Fine. Do it. Go and tell them every move we've ever made and all of our strategies."

"Annabeth!" Percy yelped.

The Eris campers smiled, and, one by one, walked away.

"Don't worry," I told the rest of them. "I have a plan."

..0..

That night at the emergency meeting in the Athena Cabin, I told them every strategy we'd revamped, every player who would be smashing the offense and destroying the defense. The whole baseball game idea could not be taken lightly, and I wasn't about to.

"Nico, you're not playing third. I'm putting you at shortstop."

"Percy, you're going to be catcher instead of first."

I addressed a daughter of Harmonia next. "Maya, I want you at pitcher."

Travis and Connor were playing left field and right field respectively. Everyone was moved around. I was now secondbase instead of first, but it was okay. We even had different people on base for each inning. I, the great Annabeth Chase, had a plan, and so far it was going well.

"So, we all know what to do?"

I was met with nods and yeses from my teammates.

"Alright Team Nike, any questions?"

"Annabeth, do you think we're going to win?" a young Hecate camper asked.

"I think we have a good chance." Who was I kidding? TEAM ARES had muscular ball-murderers and we had strategy. It would be fun, but not even a _close _game. TEAM ARES was going to crush Team Nike into dust. And then stomp through it.

"What can we do to make sure we win?" A particularly competitive Janus camper asked from the back of the room.

"Keep focused, keep your head in the game, eat your Wheaties… and maybe sacrifice some of them to the goddess of Victory."

They all laughed, though rather nervously. "That may be a good idea," Percy pointed out.

"Let us pray to our godly parents - and Nike- for luck and prosperity in tomorrow's game. After all, winning team gets ice cream for dessert. And I know how much you guys like ice cream."

The room was filled with hushed mutterings of Team Nike praying to the gods and goddesses who governed our fate.

"Okay guys, you all set for tomorrow?" I asked.

"Sure… I guess…" Unsure mutterings filled the room.

"I can't hear you!" I cried.

"Yeah," they answered. More sure now. More certain that we could beat the odds and TEAM ARES.

"I still can't hear you!"

"Yeah!" They were smiling and had that gleam, that I-could-take-down-the-Titans glint in their eyes.

"Louder!"

"YEAH!"

"We can do this!"

"YEAH!"

"We are going to win!"

"YEAH!"

"Team Nike!" I cried, passion burning through my veins.

"TEAM NIKE!" they shouted back.

Adrenaline rushed through my body as I led Team Nike to higher confidence, better understanding that we _could _win. That maybe we would win. I sent them all off to bed, warning them that the best thing they could do for our team now was get some rest and hope that the Eris campers hadn't spilled anything too major… Even though we all knew that they most likely would.

My dreams that night were sweet. I pictured hitting a grand slam to win the game. I envisioned the Eris campers huffing, defeated, and tossing their popcorn onto the ground. My dreams were filled with victory. Full of that hope, that excitement. Full of triumph by Annabeth the great. I had to win. I had to. And I was going to win.

In the morning, the Athena Cabin was bustling and chattering with giddiness. The sun was shining, birds were chirping. It was a perfect day. A perfect day for victory.


	3. Chapter 3

A ball diamond had been set up in a huge clearing in the woods. We slung our bats over our shoulders and headed down to the diamond to begin our pregame warm-ups and a final scouting of the competition.

"Good luck," Clarisse told me. I knew she meant it, but there was that harsh, I'm-going-to-cream-your-team tone in her voice.

The rest of the team was waiting for me in the dugout. "Okay, did you all eat your Wheaties?" I asked.

They nodded eagerly. A seven year old daughter of Hecate, Peach, piped up. "And I even put some in the fire! For Nike! So that we'll win!"

"Great!" My team's enthusiasm was feeding my own. Their excitement, giddy whispers made me even more hyped up. "Alright, let's get down to business. Anyone got anything they wanna say?"

"Yes, I do." Nico spoke up.

"Yeah?" I raised my eyebrows.

"I have some music. Play it." He handed me a CD which I popped into the CD player the Stoll brothers handed me.

"Yeah! Power music!" Percy and the Stoll brothers cried as they all gave Nico a high-five.

I rolled my eyes as "Ain't Nothin' Gonna Break My Stride" blasted from the speakers.

It _did _seem to get out team pepped up.

"One lap around the bases! Warm ups, everyone!" I cried.

We raced around the bases feeling hyped and energized. As we stretched, TEAM ARES began their batting drills. It was even more intense than training to fight the Titans. Of course, there was ice cream at stake.

"Grab a partner and play catch!" I ordered.

Watching the Clarisse coach her team was like Baseball Boot Camp. "HARDER! SWING HARDER!"

Silently shaking my head, I returned to my own team. "Okay guys, you ready?"

"READY!"

"Okay, first-inning fielders, get in position. We're going to practice with some hits."

I grabbed a bat as my pupils jogged to their position. Maya caught my first hit and threw it to first. Elza, out bat-designer and Hephaestus camper, caught the ball.

"Good job, guys!" I gushed. "That would've been a double play! Great!"

The celestial bronze bats were working great. They hit harder and faster. And apparently the Eris campers hadn't alerted TEAM ARES of our new equipment, because they were still using regular metal bats. Score.

"Captains!" Chiron announced. "Shake hands!"

Clarisse smiled at me, and I smiled back. We could totally win. She grasped my hand – hard – and shook.

"May the best team win."

Chiron and Argus would act as our umpires.

"Alright guys! This is what we've trained for!"

My fielders jogged to their positions. We were doing great… until the first Ares camper stepped up to bat. Our seven-year-old Hecate center-fielder ran after it as fast as she could, which was pretty fast for little Peach. Still, Maxx made it to third base before the ball was back to the pitcher.

"Great job, Peach! Great!"

She smiled widely at me.

TEAM ARES just kept swinging and hitting and bashing the balls. They got all five runs allowed in an inning.

"Okay guys, good job out there." Well, they could've done a whole lot worse.

Percy was our first batter. Nico was on deck.

Ouch. Percy got up to bat. Clarisse was pitching, and she threw a dead ball. Straight to the ribs.

"I think," he gasped, "I am gonna need a pinch runner."

"Sorry Percy." Clarisse looked slightly more sympathetic than usual.

An Apollo camper who had been standing by looked at his ribs. "Broken."

"Peach, you're our base-runner."

The little blond smiled, her green eyes bright with excitement. She threw on a helmet and jogged out to first base.

"You okay?"

Percy winced, but nodded. "Fine. Nice choice, Annabeth. Putting Peach in." He rolled his eyes.

"Aren't you a little too injured for sarcasm?"

Nico swung. One strike. Peach stole second base. _Ha. Nice choice indeed. _On his second swing, Nico killed the ball. Like a comet, it flew past the right fielder, who didn't get it to the pitcher until Peach was home. The Apollo camper at third muttered a few curse words loudly. An older Janus camper named Paulina was up next. She hit a grounder, but made it to second. Two strikeouts later, we were almost tied with TEAM ARES. Elza smashed a ball into left field, bringing home another runner for our fifth run.

"Alright, second inning fielders, out to your…" Percy was a second-inning fielder.

"Kata can take catcher." Percy gave Kata a few tips.

I jogged to second base. We tossed around a ball.

Everything started going downhill as soon as soon as Kata started fumbling around in the catcher's gear. She let past three Morpheus campers before we had even gotten an out.

By the third inning, we were down by ten runs.

Fourth inning. Down by thirteen.

Fifth inning, we were doing better, but still not good enough.

We were starting to catch up. Peach had some good hits. Maya struck out a few of the Aphrodite campers. I had hope now.

We were only down by ten. "Thank you Nike!"

After the sixth inning, we all took a break. I saw a lady sitting in the bleachers among the Eris campers. She wore a baseball cap and looked suspiciously like a soccer mom. "Annabeth!" she called.

"Hi," I answered confused. Who was sh-… Oh. I got it now. "Nike!"

"You are doing well. Such a great leader. Your mother is proud, I'm sure. And I, well, I think you're victorious. You've brought a new sport to this happy little camp. It makes me happy."

Making a goddess happy is good. Very good. Especially if it is the goddess of victory. Extremely good.

"Good luck," she told me. And I knew we would win.

Everyone was better in their hitting, fielding, everything. By the ninth inning, we had bounced back and were now tied with TEAM ARES.

I swung the bat, bashed the ball, and ended up getting a double.

"Good job, Annabeth!" Peach and Jeyna called.

Our hitters did well, and we got seven runs before we got three outs.

"Ninth inning fielders, into position!" I ordered.

Maya took pitcher. The Stoll brothers jogged to left and right field. I snagged a second base spot. Elza was all ready at first, Nico was looking vicious at shortstop, and Kata and Peach were doing well at catcher and third. Jeyna waved at me from centerfield.

"Yes!" Maya cried as she threw three strikes in a row.

Malcolm Foxx grumbled under his breath as he left the batter's box.

She walked the next two Persephone campers. I was briefly worried.

Two runs for TEAM ARES. (Insert Choice Words Here) I didn't think we could win now.

Clarisse killed the ball. I nearly tripped over Jeyna trying to catch the pop fly. _Oh no. I'm gonna miss! _I swear that I was a good twenty feet too far forward, but the ball landed softly in my glove with a _thump! _"YES!"

Our next out wasn't very climactic. A basic throw to third. But it was okay! I didn't need a dramatic win, I just needed victory. And ice cream.

In the end, Percy escaped with broken ribs and everyone left knowing how to play baseball. But it was all worth it. I'm not sure which was more enjoyable, the ice cream or the victory itself. Thank you Nike!


End file.
